project list
september:
*find sources sawdust, mulch, straw
*build up new herb beds with spaughnum peat & compost
*harvest seedheads for butterfly garden (mostly coneflower)
october:
*plant shallot, garlic week 1 or 2. work in compost and spaughnum peat.
*dig up hostas, iris, other bulbs. divide. replant where wanted.
*gather fallen tree leaves for vegetable and herb gardens
november:
*mow down butterfly garden.
*rent mulcher/shredder??
*bury seedheads
*continue to gather fallen tree leaves for vegetable and herb gardens

today was a lovely afternoon. it ended up being a wild goose chase, taking me 2 hours to hunt down seeds for the fall garden. all of the retialers have put them away till spring. i suppose fall gardens aren't very popular around here/
in any case i finally got to plant some seed, even though it was bottom-of-the-barrel choices -- buttercrunch lettuce, mustard. and collards. 1 short row of each, and i marked them (also dusted with the espoma fertilzer).
i decided it wouldn't be a bad time to fetilize the garden so i got out the epsom salts and the fish emulsion, mixed it up and sprayed the herbs, the tomatoes, and the peppers. the corn is pretty much shot, and the strawberries dont need it this time of year. except for pehaps one more application of fertizer the 1st of october for the fall crops, that will do it for fertilizing this year.

yesterday i stopped by, with the saw dust and about 20 lbs of spoiling vegetables that Ashley gave me. We turned the compost in the bin and then added the veg in layers, as well as saw dust. i thought more about saw dust, i think they make alot of it in the sculpture/ceramics buildings at nku. so maybe later on, we can visit there and collect some. some wood ash would be great too. for years i have been saying we should go out to some campgrounds and gather some. its a lot of effort, and we'd need a pick up truck.

anyway so the compsot will be ready in six weeks (without the addition what we had would have been ready in 3), just in time for working it into the onion and garlic row for planting. need to turn it the 2nd week of september. i added 1 gallon of water today.

today aaron and i planted our fall crop of beans and peas, and put some mystery cruciferous veg in the ground. we have some spinach and lettuce to put in and that will do it for the fall garden. that meant we moved the fences, and put them farther apart. we had them only 2 feet apart before and it clearly wasnt enough room. also, the nice thing, we actually harvested some bea and peas for seeds, for once, and replanted. so we saved about $3 to not buy any seed. the pea seed is probably crossed, we had sugar snap and snow pea planted next to each other. but that no big deal, and might actually be interesting (pea crosses easily -- hence the study of them in freshman biology courses, mendels pioneering experiments in genetics). also, we put a bit of the espoma organic fertilizer down in the planting rows.

im watering the grass now, waiting for it to get dark. despite the rain, we just planted some seeds, and it needs the extra water. about 90 minutes for that.

also, i defined the borders with rocks for the new herb patches on the side of the building near the shed. its a clear border, and since the rock is only 1 layer high, can be easily removed if we later wish so. but aaron and i both felt it necessary to have a physical border defined, and it only took a couple of hours. and it looks pretty good.

id like to move the herbs in the old herb patch to these new areas. i don't think it will be much of an issue.

aaron and i should discuss ideas for the shady area near the deck and the small herb patch... i have not a clue what to do with it. right now its a hideous little mess. i just had a thought maybe we should organize our herbs better? maybe by use (medicinal, culinary) or maybe by geography (america, asia, africa, europe). some thing. we have two "permanent" areas for herbs now. well we have all winter to think it over...

its amazing how much more work can be done in the garden when its only 78 degrees instead of 99.

Yesterday I did a little spot weeding and pulled up a row of carrots. I washed, cut and peeled the largest ten or so and took them home, and shared a couple with Belle this morning. The rest are perhaps a little too small to make much use of, and will probably go to compost. As usual, given the quality of our soil here, the roots were misshapen, though we had a couple that would have looked just fine on the cover of Carrots Monthly. Hopefully Jim has found time to grab a bucket of saw dust that appeared in the basement of his apartment. Adding that to the soil should help to loosen it up enough to maybe have a more successful crop next year. That and remembering to thin out the rows. There are still some carrots in the ground that I figured I'd leave in until Jim could come by to take some home. No sense in them going to waste.


There's a chance of rain all this week, though my guess is we will mostly just see cloudy skies with a little precipitation.